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   Mass stranding of whales in MA

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Topic: Mass stranding of whales in MA (Read 836 times)

Roo94
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Mass stranding of whales in MA
« on: Jul 31^st, 2002, 10:17am »

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The first stranding happened in Dennis, about a mile down the beach from where I stayed on vacation a couple of weeks ago. Very, very sad. :bigcry:

Cudos to all those volunteers who tried in vain to save them!

WELLFLEET - In a heartbreaking reversal of Monday's dramatic rescue of 46 beached pilot whales, officials abandoned all hope of saving the creatures last night after they stranded themselves twice more on another Cape Cod beach. At 5:45 p.m., veterinarians began the grim task of euthanizing 36 whales still alive on an isolated beach near the Eastham line.

Six of the returnees had already died. And several whales stranded farther out in the shallow waters were not euthanized, but officials did not expect them to survive.

Just three hours earlier, fifty trained rescuers had escorted the clicking and beeping whales out to sea during high tide. But the animals soon turned and began swimming back to shore, ignoring rescuers' attempts to shoo them away. By 5 p.m., the dying pod clumped together at the head of a nearby salt marsh. Such repetitive deadly behavior - although mysterious to scientists - is common among pilot whale strandings.

''When you combine the heat, the humidity, the exhaustion, the dehydration with a feeling of utter defeat, it has made for a very long, very sad day.'' said Katie Touhey, program director of the Cape Cod Stranding Network. The largest whale stranding on Cape Cod in recent memory was in 1982, when 59 whales had to be euthanized after beaching themselves in Wellfleet.

Yesterday, dozens of onlookers, would-be helpers, and trained rescuers had walked 2 miles through thick salt marsh or paddled kayaks to reach the whales on the isolated beach near Lieutenant Island. Throughout the day, rescuers had doused the 12- to 20-foot-long whales with cooling water as they waited for high tide to make the creatures buoyant again.

The whales' saga began Monday in Dennis at 6 a.m., when beachgoers discovered 55 of them piled upon each other like black rocks near Chapin Beach. Within the hour, hundreds of tourists and residents raced to the beach with buckets and blankets to keep the animals cool and protected from sunlight until rescuers arrived.

Nine died or had to be euthanized, but whale specialists said the tourists and residents who helped were ''saviors'' and instrumental in escorting 46 of the animals out to sea. None turned back right away and rescuers cautiously called their efforts a success.

But yesterday, the same 46 whales - rescuers had tagged them Monday - were discovered at 7 a.m. in Wellfleet, about 26 miles north. By the time the incoming tide allowed rescuers to push them back into deep water, six had died, and eight had such weak heartbeats that scientists knew they would not survive, prepared to euthanize them. Scientists will perform necropsies on the animals today and tomorrow for clues to what killed them.

''If they come on [the beach] once and you get to them on time, sometimes they live happily ever after. But they come on again, the prognosis isn't good,'' said Phil Clapham, head of the large whale biology program for the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Pilot whales - sometimes called blackfish or potheads for their square heads - often strand on Cape Cod, where the world's two largest strandings occurred in 1916 and 1926. Records show that 500 whales were stranded each time, but those numbers might have included the day's catch - pilot whales were hunted through the 1930s for their oil-filled heads.

Scientists know the squid-eating whales come close to shore during high tides, and they surmise the animals sometimes simply get stuck trying to navigate through Cape Cod's sandbars as the tide goes out.

''Don't forget, Cape Cod is one of the graveyards of the Atlantic for humans,'' because the topography, combined with weather, is so tricky for boats, said Dave Wiley, marine mammal specialist for the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Reserve. Some people speculate that the cape, a constantly shifting sandbar, once included a water passage and the whales, following genetically programmed instincts, continue to look for it.

But why do they all strand together and keep coming back to shore? Some scientists believe the pods - each comprising six to hundreds of related whales - stay together through thick and thin. They may return to a beach to help a family member or they may be following what the most respected member of the group does.

''We follow someone we trust or go to help a family member,'' said Wiley. The whales, too, may repeatedly beach themselves because of exhaustion or disorientation, he said. In addition, time spent on a beach takes a toll on a whale: The sun blisters their skin and their bodies' own weight - an average 1,800 pounds - once out of water, can crush bones. Even lying on sand for a while makes it more difficult for whales to swim straight.

Yesterday, many of the volunteers said the creatures appeared disoriented and in poor shape. Some described the whales cries as a sound like wet sneakers on a gym floor. Though some whales were euthanized early in the day, rescuers decided to make another attempt to steer the animals out to sea as tide rose at midday.

At that point, With three humans per animal, the rescuers slung a blanket below the whale's head so as not to damage its flukes. Clustered together, the rescuers gently floated the animals forward, one by one, slowly walking with them about 1/4 mile from shore into deeper water. There the whales were pushed off as rescuers madly slapped the water to shoo them away.

One whale - tag number 571 - didn't make it far. As volunteers Debbie McPhee and Walter Craig doused the sickly animal with water for 90 minutes for comfort, its extended family was escorted farther and farther away. Scientists say that if a whale isn't within dozens of feet of a pod, it may not find its family again. Single pilot whales do not survive long at sea.

Hours later, 571's family was back and dying. Despite rescuers' attempts and several opportunities to return to the sea, the animals didn't budge.

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east
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Re: Mass stranding of whales in MA
« Reply #1 on: Jul 31^st, 2002, 12:04pm »

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i saw this on the morning news and thought "WHY Huh

!" this makes me very sad.

:bigcry:

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Addams
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Re: Mass stranding of whales in MA
« Reply #2 on: Jul 31^st, 2002, 1:07pm »

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on Jul 31^st, 2002, 12:04pm, eastendgirl wrote:

i saw this on the morning news and thought "WHY Huh

!" this makes me very sad.

:bigcry:

Thanks for this great article Roo. I had just had time to see a photo on the front of our national newspaper but no time to read any articles. I love whales. when I was in Boston a few years ago I went whale watching. It was so incredible. I was on my own taking summer school at Tufts but the very next day I went out again on another whale watching trip. It was fantastic.

To see entire families die together - it's so sad. Your article helped.

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